Surfs Up: Twisted Edition 4 - Escape From Colorado

I drove up the highway to the mountains. I was dring towards the mysterious office of the company known as Codysoft – the cursed company which had created the demonic items which has destroyed my own life and the life of many people in New York. They had already infiltrated the government including the state government of Colorado, and also the police, who were now searching for me. I still had time to take down Codysoft before they got me.

I pulled off the highway at the address I had found on the destroyed scrap of paper I had found on the remains of the super-natural contract I had nearly been forced to sign by the demon-possessed Governor of Colorado before it had been accidentally destroyed at his own hand using the powerful voodoo knife he had been using in a ritual to possess me with evil spirits.

Here it was – Codysoft. There was a big blue metal gate with the word painted on it in red letters, and a small security booth that had a security guard in who was wearing sunglasses – just like the demon-possessed police officers who had tried to capture me in Denver had. He looked at my car angrily, so I just drove past the gate and parked up a little way down the road. It was nearly dark so I waited for it to get dark and ran up to the fence.

The fence was a chain link fence, so I pulled open the corner and climbed through. Past the fence was the office building, which was a big office painted with the Codysoft colors. Even though it was nearly dark there was a lot of lights on in the building, which was worrying.

I ran to the building, hoping nobody would look out and see me. When I was out of sight, I ran round to a door on one side, which was a fire-escape, and tried the door. It was locked, but fortunately I had my lock-picking kit which I kept in my car with me so I picked the lock and went inside.

I was in a long white corridor with lots of rooms. It was quiet but I could hear people walking around nearby, so I ducked into one of the rooms as they went past. I held my breath while two people walked past outside with footsteps. Then I looked around to see what room I was in. It was dark so I turned on the lights. The walls were covered in shelves, which held hundreds of DVDs, CDs, VHS video tapes, and Video Game cartriges.

“What the fucking hell?” I murmured violently. I went over to the shelf and looked at the movies. I saw ''Open Season Twisted Edition. Surfs Up Twisted Edition. Cloudly With a Chance Of Meatballs Twisted Edition. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 Twisted Edition. Arthur Christmas: Twisted Christmas. Hotel Translyvania Twisted Edition.'' This shelf was labelled Sony Pictures  and as I looked at the other shelves I saw there were shelves for other companies as well, like Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks animation. There were literally hundreds of twisted edition movies – and I could feel from the evil energies that emanated from them that they had been demonically altered using some dark process. They were all cursed like the one I had received.

“This is shitting fucked up.” I whispered. I would have to destroy the stockpile of cursed devices before I left – but I wanted to get to the bottom of this place before I destroyed it. What was the dark secret behind Codysoft’s mission to infiltrate the world with these cursed products? Would these products lead to possession amongst those who watched them – or worse, physical manifestations of the demonic entitites that were associated with them, like had happened to me in New York City when a demonic simulacrum of the Surf’s Up character Cody Maverik had escaped from the cursed game and invaded the real world – biting the neck of a man I had been helping investigate a mystery and killing him and forcing me to flee New York by jumping off the New York bridge.

The guards had passed by outside so I went out of the library and went into the corridor and went to the end of the corridor. There were a lot of signs on the wall which showed the directions to differents zones of the facility. There were signs for offices, factory, production zone and laboratory. I followed signs for the laboratory, being careful to keep my gun out as I went down the stairs, ready to take on any demon possessed guards. I went down the stairs and realized I must be underground in an underground part of the facility. I saw the sign that said laboratory on the door, and I went through the door. It was another dark room.

It was a control room, that had a window that looked down onto a big white chamber with tiled walls which had a big table in the middle with straps on like it was surgery table. There was also a big screen on one wall. A door lead out onto a gantry with steps down to the floor of the room, and there was another door on the other side. It was empty. The control room had a lot of buttons on a big panel in front of the window, which also had a slot for DVDs and VHS tapes. It was the controller for the big screen. There were also a bunch of filing cabinets.

I opened the cabinets and looked at the files inside.

“What the fucking hell?” I whispered again. The files were all pictures of kids. I felt sick as I saw them, suddenly terrified I was going to see something sick inside. I opened a random file. It was full of facts and statistics about the child. Two things stuck out to me as extremely disturbing – the first was a heading that said FAVOURITE MOVIE – it was labelled as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. And below that was a having that said CONDITON – it was labelled as “Cancer – status: TERMINAL”.

I had to hold back tears as I realized what that meant. This was extremely disturbing. What kind of twisted shit had been going on here? I had a flashback to my old life as a New York detective – a pedofile had slashed me with a razor when I tried to arrest him. This seemed to be even worse. I put the file back and rifled through the other drawers. They were all the same. I opened the last draw, and it was the oldest. The files here were dusty and smelt old. I picked up the one at the very back and saw the name – Cody Maverik.

“What the shit?” I whispered. When I opened I didn’t see a picture of the surfs up character, but a young boy who looked vaguely familiar. When I looked at the file, I realized why. It had a heading labelled “Siblings” and I saw the names – Jacob and Zane Maverick. The two men who’s case I had investigated in New York – Kane Maverick had gone missing after his girlfriend was murdered in hospital and his brother had turned up at my apartment to explain he was innocent – but shortly after he had been murdered by the horrifying apparition of Cody Maverick from Surf’s Up. Except – they had a brother called Cody – the same name as the surfs up character. What on earth was going on?

I didn’t have time to think about it. I heard a banging down below and I quickly put the file back and went to the window. In the chamber below, two scientists were pulling a man into the chamber. Their eyes flashed with the red demonic light that indicated they were possessed. The man they were pulling was a weak man with a big heavy beard and long hair, wearing an orange prisoner’s suit and manacles. He also was very thin and had big scars all over his body – like bite marks. I almost threw up with shock when I realized who it was. Beneath the changes I recognized Zane Maverick. I had been searching for him in New York – but he had been a prisoner here the whole time!

The scientists strapped him onto the table and pressed a button and the table rose up to face the screen like a reverse dentist chair. His eyes were now directly level with the big screen. With a shock I realized the scientists were walking up the stairs to the gantry to come into the control room – to control their perverse experiment. I needed a place to hide.

I ducked behind the filing cabinet just before they opened the door – but fortunately they were too distracted with the control panel to notice me hiding in the shadows. One of them pulled a DVD disc from his lab coat pocket and cackled as he inserted it into the slot. The other one leant down to a microphone in the control panel and spoke, and the voice was echoed across into the chamber.

“I hope you’re excited for movie night Zane … we’ve got an especially exiting picture for you tonight hahaha.”

Down in the chamber Zane cried in terror and thrashed against his restraints, but they were too tight. The scientists laughed manically as the watched him struggled, but as the movie began to play he gave up all resistance.

“How long is this one?” One scientist asked the other.

“Two hours and fourteen minutes.”

“Ok, let’s set our watches.” There was a beep as they did that, and then they left the room- leaving me alone watching over Zane Maverick and whatever disturbing movie he was being forced to watch as a twisted experiment. A title came up – HOTEL TRANSVLANIA 3: TWISTED EDITION. On the table, Zane Maverick let out a long, blood-curdling scream. I winced. The man was in extreme terror. Presumably he had been through hundreds of these torturous movie experiments where the scientists in this twisted factory experiment on him with new cursed movies – and he new what horrors were coming. I new I had to get him out of there.

Quickly, I left my hiding place and ran to the gantry and down to the steps. Zane’s eyes didn’t leave the screen, where the Codysoft logo was appearing. I found a button on the table, and it slid back down into horizontal position, which was when he finally noticed me.

“Who – who are you?” His voice was weak and dry like he hadn’t drank in days. His eyes were bloodshot.

“My names Zack Muerte, I’m going to get you out of here.” I quickly began to undo the straps on his hands and legs but once he was free I realized he wasn’t paying attention to me any more. He was looking back up at the screen. That’s when I realized the movie had gone silent. I followed his eyeliner up to the screen. On the screen, the characters had stopped moving, and the movie had gone quiet. Whatever scene had been taking place had stopped -  instead they were stood still, looking out of the screen. It was like they could see us. Zane’s eyes were wide in terror as he stared back up at them.

“Come on we’ve got to go.” I tugged him towards the doors. On the screen, the eyes followed us as we left. We ran out into the corridor, and just as we did, a horrifying screech echoed out from the room we had just left. I heard heavy thumps coming from the door, and footsteps suddenly running after us.

“Run!” I yelled, and we sprinted down the corridor. I could just glimpse the dark shapes that had crawled out of the screen biting at our tail. I knew better than to try and use my gun against the supernatural forms. From somewhere in the facility above an alarm began to blair, and all the lights went red and flashed.

“There’s another way out down here!” Zane tugged at my arm, pointing down another corridor, as loud as he could manage. I saw demon-possessed guards with guns raised running from the other direction, so I nodded, and followed him down the corridor.

The corridor went down futher into the earth and became a tunnel. Just as I was beginning to get worried, we came to a big steel blast door. It was locked with a padlock. A big sign above labelled it “SERVICE ENTRANCE.”

“Oh shit it’s locked.” Murmured Zane.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” I muttered, and pulled out my gun. I blasted the padlock with one shot and the padlock exploaded. The chains fell away, and the huge metal doors swung open. Sunlight spilled in. Outside was the mountainside of Colorado. It was a large canyon and in the centre the Colorado river ran quickly down the riverbed. There were no vehicles, but there was a small dock in the river. Behind us in the tunnel I heard the alarms getting louder and the footsteps closing in.

“Quick, the White-Water raft!” I yelled to Zane, who was slumped over and breathing very heavily. He nodded, but he seemed very week. I helped him down to the dock and we jumped into the big orange inflatable boat just as a dozen guards emerged from the tunnel. Machine gun bullets bounced off the wood and the water of the dock as I untied to the rope and we cast off. The current was strong but there were two paddles which we could use to control the movement of the raft. I passed one to Zane and used the other.

The water was fast and treacherous, and we had to keep ourselves from hitting rocks by paddling strongly in the other direction. The canyon was steep and there were lots of twists and bends in the river. Water splashed everywhere, even inside the boat and it was freezing cold. Zane looked very pale in the light and almost like he was about to pass out.

Suddenly I realized we hadn’t gotten away yet. A road ran on top of the canyon following the course of the river. Up there, I saw two dark black SUVs following us, with guns pointed out the windows. I realized it must be guards from the facility. They fired bullets at us as we passed down the river, easily keeping pace with us on the current.

“Take the oar!” I roared to Zane Maverick and tossed him my oar, as I pulled the gun out. I jumped up against the side of the boat and aimed at the trucks. I fired a few shots, but they missed. The demonic guards fired back, and the water exploaded around us.

Up ahead the road twisted and went down to a big metal bridge across the water. The two SUVs accelerated and took up positions on the bridge, aiming down at us. A barrage of machine gun fire tore up the water all around us. I had to think quickly. Suddenly I saw above the bridge was the rock slope which was covered in boulders. I shifted my fire and aimed at the boulders. There was a loud crack as the boulders were disturbed from their delicate positions, and began to roll down to the bridge.

The guards had no time to react as the landslide crashed down on them. The two trucks exploaded. Just as we were closing in on the bridge, it groaned under the impact and collapsed down.

“Watch the fuck out!” I yelled as the collapsing bridge fell all around us. Zane paddling desperately as he tried to avoid the huge metal girders that were smashing into the water all around us. One of the burnt wrecks of an SUV smashed into the water next to us, and the wave nearly capsized our small boat.

We passed the ruins of the bridge, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, a shape broke the water, and scrabbled up over the side of the boat. It was on the demonic guards – eyes burning red with hellish fury. His face was all scarred and red and covered in blood. He leapt onto the boat and grappled with me. I saw pure hatred in his face as I tried to bring round my gun to shoot him – but he was too strong. He forced my arms down. Just as I thought he was about to disarm and shoot me, there was a crack. The oar broke over the back of his head – swung by Zane Maverick. He slumped downwards, and slipped over the side into the water.

“I think it’s over.” I spluttered out the water. The words were barely out of mouth when I realized I was wrong. I heard the thump of helicopter rotors. I looked around, and I saw a jet-black helicopter closing in far above the canyon.

“Shit! What now!” I cursed. Zane navigated the boat through a few more miles of river through twists and turns of the canyon as I fired the shots hoping in vain to hit the helicopter. But I was too far, and I wasn’t a good enough shooter. I fired the last bullets, then tossed the useless gun away. It looked like it really was over now – but it wasn’t going to be a happy ending.

The helicopter closed in for the kill. As it got closer, I saw a man with a sniper rifle sat in the door – another of the demons minions, I supposed. He fired, and a huge plume of water exploaded in front of us. Another shot echoed out and another plume exploaded behind us. With a third shot, there came a violent hissing from the boat, and I looked around to see a huge hole in the boat, and air rapidly escaping from the inflatable hull.

“Looks like we’re done for!” Moaned Zack as he slipped down into the bottom of the boat, too weak to continue. Up in the helicopter the sniper was reloading.

Suddenly I saw it – our only chance. We rounded the corner, and I saw a long stretch of straight water. At the end, a fence came down to the edge of the water on both sides of the banks. A chain link section ran across the water to prevent people from swimming through. It had the words “MEXICO – STRICLY NO ADMITTANCE TO US CITIZENS” emblazoned on it. The Mexican border! It was our only chance.

Quickly I grabbed the oar from Zane and paddling harder. The boat was sagging seriously now and water was flooding in over the sides. I paddled as fast as I could, but the distance seemed like a thousand miles.

“We have to make it to the border!” I yelled to him, he didn’t answer. I paddled and paddled, but the fence didn’t seem to get any closer. Just as we reached the chain link, the sniper finished reloading. Another bullet smashed into the fence as the remains of our boat slammed into it. The boat was fully underwater now and sinking fast. The water was up to my chest.

“We’ll have to dive under the fence!” Zane was almost fully passed out now, so I grabbed him by the shirt and began to pull him from the boat. Suddenly, there was a sickening thump, and an explosion of blood rained down. A bullet had hit Zane. His shirt quickly stained red. The wound looked serious – but I wasn’t letting go now. I grabbed him, and dove down under the water, just as more bullets splashed around us.

The current pulled us downwards, under the fence. I was too weak to fight it. It was all I could do to hold onto Zane’s limp body as we were sucked under the border fence into Mexican waters. Everything was fading into darkness as the current surged back upwards.

The current spat us out in the shallows, on a big beige rock. I used the last of my strength to pull Zane from the water, blood leaking from his shirt. He still had a pulse – not that it mattered. Any second now the helicopter would bear down on us. On the rock we would be sitting ducks – there was nowhere to hide. It would only take two shots.

Just as I felt certain I was a dead man, I looked up, and I saw the helicopter – my heart leaped! It was turning away. I watched it retreat. Codysoft might’ve been powerful, but it seemed even they were unwilling to cross an international boarder. The helicopter dwindled away until it was just a speck in the distance. We had survived. I was alone in a foreign country with a seriously injured man, and the agents of Codysoft and its demonic overlords now even more furiously on my tail – but for now at least I had evaded them. I had escaped from Colorado.